The Lost Girl In The Woods
by jumptheshark
Summary: When Edward Cullen finds a frightened girl alone and crying in the woods, he takes her home to care for her. But his sister Alice is concerned, knowing there is something deeply disturbing about the girl. Isabella Swan is not quite as she seems...


characters property of SM

The Doctor, the Vampyre and the Witch

I am a doctor, as was my father before me, and I serve the village in which I was born and raised, as well as several others in the surrounding countryside. I consider myself a simple man, stout of heart and strong of limb, sober of habits and unfanciful in my contemplations. The good Lord watches over me, guiding my way, and I my life, while not without its stresses due to the nature of my calling, is satisfying enough.

My one disappointment is that I am unwed, having not as yet met the woman I feel I could commit myself to. I will admit to a degree of loneliness despite my closeness to my sister, and the friendliness which is unfailingly shown to me by the community.

I was returning from a visit to one of my patients in a village a couple of miles away through the woods when from horseback I espied a series of footprints in the mud of the track. This in itself was not remarkable, as most villagers travel on foot, horses being something of a luxury in these parts. What made an impression upon me was that these feet were bare. As it is frequently cold and damp in our county even the poorest folk have leather claddings for their feet, if not actual soled shoes.

I dismounted and examined the prints. They were small and irregular, as though the owner of the feet were stumbling, and to my alarm there were traces of blood in them. My doctor's instincts were at once aroused - there was someone on the path ahead of me in need of my help.

Following the wavering tracks and leading my horse by its rein, I continued along the path, and suddenly became aware of the sound of weeping. It was feminine, and even as I registered the fact my horse shied and would go no further.

"Nessie, shh, what is the matter? There is a girl crying, but we will help her. Nessie!"

With a squeal and a toss of her head, my mare wrenched her rein from me and bolted. I had no time to consider this uncharacteristic behavior though, because I was now so near to the source of the sobbing. A little way to the side of me in a clearing between trees sat a girl on the ground, cross-legged like a child, head bowed in an attitude of such misery my heart went out to her.

"My dear, I am a doctor. What has befallen you, and can I help?" I said, as gently as I could.

She raised her eyes to mine and I saw that she was not a child as I had at first supposed - she was a young woman and her poor feet were in a grievous state. It looked as though she had walked barefoot on them for miles.

"No, you can't help, and you must leave here and forget you ever saw me," she answered very sternly.

"Certainly not. I will assist you in any way I can. My horse has disappeared, and you are in no condition to walk - let me bind your feet, and I will carry you to the next village where I will be able to treat you," I told her. I reached to my shirt and made ready to tear strips from it to bandage her sore ruined little feet.

"You don't understand. I am cursed. If you wish to destroy your shirt to make me dressings then please yourself, I will not refuse. But you cannot take me to the next village, or indeed take me anywhere, because I don't wish to go. You must depart alone and be on your way," she said urgently. She was very, very pale, and looked ready to collapse. Her black eyes were huge in her delicate pallid face, surrounded by messy and tangled dark hair, and above a frame slight and shivering.

"What is your name?" I asked her, a strip of cloth already in my hands, ready for the first foot.

"Isabella Swan. And yours, good sir?" she answered.

"I am Edward Cullen, the local doctor. It is most fortunate for you that I found you," I told her, with her tiny foot delicately in my hand as I wound the strip around it.

"Not so fortunate for you, though," she murmured.

I took care of the other foot, musing at her remark. Blood stained the dressings fairly quickly, and she gasped to see it. I took this for fright and pain.

"Come now Miss Swan, it is not far, and I am strong, and you must weigh no more than a newborn lamb. I've carried plenty of lambs in my time. Tonight you shall have a warm and hearty dinner, and a hot bath, and you shall sleep in my sister's bed."

She shrank back from me as I tried to lift her.

"No!" she cried. "I cannot come with you. Don't ask it of me, I beg you!"

"Well, I cannot leave you here. We will do as I say, and in the morning things will look different. You will be rested, and you may tell me something of what has happened to you, to lead you to being in this situation," I said, picking her up. She was so slight, it was as though I held a bird in my arms.

"Very well, but you must promise me one thing," she said against my shoulder. "I cannot sleep in your sister's bed - indeed I cannot sleep in your house. Have you ropes? I must spend the night in your stable, and you must tie me securely, and no matter what you hear overnight, you mustn't come down to look, you must leave me there until cockcrow. Do you understand?"

"I refuse utterly to accede to your request!" I exclaimed. "It is unreasonable. I am a doctor, and a human being - I couldn't possible allow an injured person to sleep in my horse's accommodation instead of a bed, and a young girl such as yourself, clearly of nervous disposition and fine breeding must sleep indoors."

"Then I will bite you, and scratch and kick until you drop me, and I will not let you take me," she declared.

The mite spoke with such determination that I decided I would agree with her in the hope that once she was at my house and comfortable she would abandon altogether the foolish notion about the ropes and the stable, and would stay the night through with my sister Alice.

On the way home I attempted to draw information from her as to her circumstances, and she told me a few things, but stopped short at any detailed answers, leaving me intrigued and wondering. She said she was running from someone. She had started out with boots but they had worn completely through. She had been wandering for days. She was very frightened and didn't like being alone, but she trusted no-one. I assumed that my aid, and the compassion and care I showed her would solve all her problems - fool that I was!

My house was deserted when we arrived home as my sister was still at her place of work. I drew Miss Swan a hot bath and found a nightgown of Alice's for her to wear. She emerged from her bath with no pinkness to acknowledge the warmth of the water which I found puzzling, but I put it down to her long hours out in the cold and damp of the forest. She declined any food, despite all my prompting, and she was such a strong-willed little thing that I resolved to let her get away with her refusal, and make sure she ate in the morning.

I sat her on a chair in the kitchen in front of the fireplace, and liberally smeared her feet with ointments of Alice's concoction to staunch the bleeding and encourage healing, besides providing pain relief. Alice is a talented and intuitive herbalist, but unfortunately in these times such talent is regarded as witchcraft, and she and I keep her gift a secret. She spends her daylight hours as a seamstress, designing and crafting beautiful gowns for fine ladies, which is another talent.

After applying the herbal salves I wrapped Miss Swan's feet in gauze, pronouncing her ready for bed.

She fixed me with a glare then, and said, "Do you remember what you promised, sir?"

Truly, I had hoped she would forget her bizarre request once we were in the warmth and comfort of a house.

"Miss Swan," I said, earnestly. "I could not in all conscience allow you to spend the night in my stable, and I would not for a moment entertain the thought of tethering you."

"Then you have broken your promise, and you are a man without honor," she replied.

It was with extreme reluctance that I then complied with her request, as to have my honor called into question cut deep - a doctor cannot be dishonorable, and a promise made soberly and wide awake must be kept. I took my own eiderdown and pillows down to the stable, and I set my jaw grimly and gritted my teeth as I bound her wrists according to her instructions, although I refused to use rope - I used my own silk scarf, and having tied her wrists I secured the loose ends around the iron ring in the stable wall. My horse was nowhere to be seen, so she had the place to herself, and I endeavored to make it as comfortable as possible.

"I trust that you will sleep well, Miss Swan," I spoke stiffly, appalled at myself, and she shuddered.

"Remember - do not enter here until the dawn, no matter what," she warned gravely.

This had been such a strange day that I sat in front of the fire, exhausted, with a glass of whiskey to warm myself. It slid amber and welcome down my throat, and I poured myself another and yet another, wondering about my mysterious and enigmatic patient outside. I dimly heard my sister arrive home, but I was dozing in my chair and she left me there.

Sometime later, I was stirred by the sound of my name.

"Dr Cullen, Dr Cullen," a voice called, sultry and husky, low and enticing, and I started, looking about me.

"Oh, Edward, won't you come to me?" it called, and it was female and alluring, coming from outside. The moonlit night poured through the windows, shadows lay deep on the ground and the air was cold, but I was lured to the stable, towards the crooning, quite forgetting my promise in my half-dunk, half-asleep state.

Miss Swan was in a position between sitting and reclining, and she smiled as I approached. There was something terribly amiss in the moonlight, and I struggled to work out what it was. She was beautiful, I had realized that upon first laying eyes on her in the woods, but there was something dreadful now about that beauty, something I struggled to identify in my inebriated and dreamlike condition. Her lips were too red, and as I stared, trying to determine the reason for my discomfort, I saw that the dressings upon her feet were undone, her scrapes and cuts were newly bleeding, and there was blood around her generous, and now slightly open mouth.

"Oh, Edward, I want to thank you for what you've done for me. Won't you come closer?" she whispered, and I started, because I saw with horror what must have happened. It looked as though she had torn the bandages from her wounds, and tasted her own blood.

"Come now - let me kiss you. Would you like me to kiss you?" the whispering continued, and I felt like a man lost - her eyes were deep and wild, her hair tossed, her hands reaching towards me. I couldn't move.

"Untie me. Or leave me tied, if you wish. Just come near..."

She reached up then with her bound hands, to the neckline of the nightgown which was tied in a bow, and she undid that bow. In front of my disbelieving and fascinated eyes, she pulled down one side of the fabric, exposing the flesh at her collarbone, so pale it was ivory. Her mouth smiled at me, a smile so seductive and teasing I drew my breath in sharply - and she pulled the fabric further, revealing the top of a breast's curve. As a doctor, I have had such things shown to me before, but not in such a manner. She was watching me for my response, and she whispered, "Will you not come and kiss me here?"

One more tug, and the whole of her breast was exposed. It was milk-pale, surprisingly heavy considering her slenderness, and in the centre was a dusky pink ring encircling a fingertip-sized nub of pure crimson.

I was nearly undone. I had never had such an invitation before, and had never committed such an act, and there was a stirring in my loins that demanded I do exactly as she asked, to open my lips around that pink circle and press my tongue to her sweet nipple and use my mouth to play with it for all time, but I looked back up to her face, and saw again the blood upon her lips, the drops of it on her chin, and I knew I should fear for my life.

Her bindings would hold, and I would not go near until dawn, as she had instructed earlier. She pleaded and cajoled, she growled and she threatened, but I held firm, and when the cock crowed heralding the dawn, the wildness went from her eyes, and she slumped in utter fatigue.

"Miss Swan? Miss Swan?" I repeated, but she was in a state of deep sleep, dead to the world and my entreaties.

I must have slept myself then, because it was well into mid-morning when my sister's shocked voice came to me.

"_Edward_?" she demanded, incredulous. "Who is this woman _tied up_ in here?"

There was nothing for it - I would have to tell her. The tale strained credibility and I fully expected her to question my sanity, but she frowned and listened to the whole thing without interruption, and at the end said, "I have heard of such things."

"How could you have heard of such things? I am a trained doctor, and it is a mystery to me!" I cried.

"Edward, you know in my pursuit of knowledge of all things herbal I have met with some unusual people, and come across esoteric teachings. I have heard of creatures such as your Miss Swan. I believe she is Vampyre - a drinker of blood. If you hadn't stayed away from her she would have ripped you apart and left you dessicated. During the day time she is human - come nightfall she is a monster until the dawn. She is a murderer Edward, and we must kill her," Alice said.

"But Alice - she tried to prevent me from being near her. She insisted that I tie her up, and she told me not to approach her after dark - it was my own folly that led me there. She didn't want to kill me!" I answered.

"Nevertheless, Edward, she feeds on blood. She predates. She seduces men, to their death," Alice said seriously. I had omitted the sequence of the breast-baring, and its accompanying suggestions, but Alice seemed to think seduction of a sexual nature was part of a Vampyre's repertoire to secure their victims.

"Is there a cure? Do you know of any herbal treatment for her condition?" I asked, because it seemed to me that to kill her would make us ourselves guilty of her alleged crime.

"No, Edward, I'm afraid not," Alice replied. "And what's more, I believe her kind are immortal. I shall have to find out what it takes to destroy them. Please make sure she continues to be bound until we are able to resolve this difficult situation."

Difficult indeed. Miss Isabella Swan awoke shortly afterwards, and was most upset to see me there.

"I told you - I warned you - I was most insistent that you not come to me in the night. How is it that you are still alive?" she whispered.

"You had blood on your lips, and I saw that it came from your own feet, and I realized that I mustn't approach you," I answered.

"I am profoundly glad that you didn't," she said. "Now let me go, as I have more running to do, and I thank you sincerely for the kindness you have shown me," she said.

"More running? Look at your feet! Where are you running to, and who are you running from?" I said.

She sighed. "I run to freedom from my curse, and you know what it is, and I run from it. It is probably inescapable, but still I run."

"Do you not want to be what you are?" I asked her.

"Oh, _Lord_, you can ask me that?" she gasped. "This daemon comes upon me at night, and whatever good I may have done during the day, whatever acts of thoughtfulness or charity I commit are negated, as I seek the only sustenance that will keep me going - blood. I meet children at noon, by dusk I want to eat them. I make friends with women in the morning, at nightfall I break their necks and drink their blood. And as for men! I meet a suitor who speaks prettily to me, and I like him, and I think I'll give him a chance, but when he comes to me in the dark his throat is mine, and he speaks no more. I hate myself, I hate my very existence, I deserve to die for bringing so much loss and pain, yet I go on, and on, I am indestructible. A monster!"

Her bewilderment, sorrow, and horror at her plight were genuine.

"Dr Cullen, immolate me," she pleaded. "Have you not the means to strike a fire? Put flames to your stable, with me bound inside, and end me and my sins and my misery!"

I stepped forward and untied my scarf from her wrists. I knelt to her and gathered her in my arms and, holding her, got to my feet again and carried her into my house. There was something about her that wasn't the murderer she claimed to be, her daytime persona was not the bold and blatant seductress but was much more tender and chaste, and her abhorrence of her alleged crimes touched a chord in me. I was a doctor by vocation, and Miss Swan wasn't sick, but she needed my help more than anybody I had ever met.

"Can you eat ordinary food?" I asked her, once I had put her in the comfortable chair in our kitchen. She sighed, shaking her head, and her pretty dark curls.

"How long since you've eaten?" I asked.

"Many days. I am faint with the hunger," she murmured.

"What about the blood of animals? I am to slaughter a pig today. What if I were to bring you blood straight from its throat?" I said, astonished at what was coming out of my mouth.

"I have tried animal blood. It is not enough," she answered slowly. "Let me throw myself into your fireplace. The flames are so pretty. I should die in a blaze of beauty. As soon as I feel strong enough I will do it. Bring me the blood of your pig."

I could scarcely bear to leave her there, having uttered such thoughts, but in truth the fireplace was far too small for even such a little thing as her. I went to the doorway and whispered urgently up the stairs to Alice, "Sister, are you there? I want to speak to you!"

Alice came bustling down.

"Alice, you may come and meet Isabella. She sits before our fire, and she wants to throw herself into it. She doesn't want to be Vampyre, and she doesn't want to kill anyone! Do you think you could try amongst your esoteric texts to find something to help her?"

"I am a witch, not a miracle worker!" Alice exclaimed, but she came in, and sat down with Isabella, who must have heard her outburst and asked, "Who are you, and what are you?"

Alice was so surprised she stammered, and began to speak to explain herself, and Isabella nodded, and listened her so completely that Alice was humbled and gratified, as no-one but me accepted her quite so easily and openly.

"I will see what I can discover for you," she assured Isabella as she rose to go about her seamstress work for the day.

"Miss Swan, I have much to do, being the medical man for these parts, and I don't know quite what to do with you while I am gone!" I said to Miss Swan, as she sat there.

""Well, Dr Cullen, there is something about my condition that may surprise you. My wounds were open only a matter of hours ago, but in my horrific and dreadful night time state they heal, and they are no longer open. Perhaps I could come with you today, and assist? I assure you I am no danger to anyone while there is light in the sky," she offered, and perhaps I was mad, I don't know what forces were working upon me, but I agreed, and took her on my morning calls around my small village of Forks, Washington.

"Oh, you have an _assistant_!" elderly Miss Stanley said, apparently delighted. I felt she may have been reading something romantic into the situation.

"A nurse? Do you know, Doctor Cullen, I would rather prefer to have a woman to talk to," Miss Webber said, which was the first time such a thing had been mentioned. To my knowledge, there was no such thing as female doctors, and Alice and her treatments were scorned and feared, although these people didn't know that Alice's herbal preparations had been what I had prescribed to them for years now.

"It seems people warm to you quickly, and trust you," I remarked to Miss Swan, and she gave me the merest of smiles.

"I am glad to perform any small service to help," she said. "But Dr Cullen, you know what must happen tonight."

"Is it every night?" I asked her. "Surely that is a burden heavy to bear!"

"Indeed," she said. "Here you are, giving aid and succor to people, and I applaud your intentions and your actions. How can you give safe harbor to a creature such as me that in the night would harm those you assist?"

"Miss Swan, I do not believe you to be wholly bad. I am confident Alice may find something to alleviate your unusual ailment," I told her.

That night, I made up her bedding for her, although I knew now that she would not sleep. I took her wrists again, as much as it pained me, and she held them out trustingly while I wrapped the silk bonds around them.

"Tight," she warned.

I sat inside as it grew dark, trembling, awaiting the singing voice of her other self, and sure enough it came, a song to make my heart race at the same time as it chilled me, now that I knew what it was - a call to my blood. Helplessly I followed the sound outside, and she lowered her eyelids halfway at the sight of me and licked her lips, and purred "Dr Cullen, I was your assistant today - can I assist you in any way now?"

"No, Isabella, you know you can't. You know I will try to help you. You know Alice is trying to find a remedy."

"A remedy for what, Edward? A remedy for desire? You know I desire you, don't you?" she smiled wickedly. "Come here, and I'll show you how much."

She pouted and her hands fluttered at the hem of her dress. She pulled it up to her calf.

"Dr Cullen, I believe I need an examination," she told me. The skirt inched higher. "Dr Cullen, I am in need of your attention. Could you have a look for me? Please, I have an ache just here." She indicated the inside of her upper thigh, the dress now so high as to be above her knees, and her fingertips pointed inwards to the silky and mysterious dark between her legs. A man can only take so much, and I am a man like any other, except that I have not succumbed to the wiles of any of the willing village barmaids or buxom farmers' daughters. My body was trying to will me forward, but caution kept me more than an arm's length from her.

I could only assume that this was the way she seduced her victims, and it would have been successful with me had I not known that such was her taste for blood she had sucked the blood from her own feet just one night previously.

"Isabella, do you know what you're doing?" I asked. "Where is the woman I have been spending time with today?"

"Oh, she's here, and this is exactly what she wants," the seductress smiled. "She is too demure to tell you, but I'm not. Come here, Dr Cullen. Don't be afraid. I will be very, very gentle with you, but I can be rough too. I can be anything you want, and _everything_."

I stayed well away as she pouted and implored me, and I was tempted, yes, but not so sorely that I was prepared to lose my life for a moment in her embrace.

When daybreak came she fell deeply asleep, as she had before, and I took her inside and laid her gently in my own bed, taking a few hours sleep myself in the chair by the window.

Alice arrived home before nightfall, and Isabella was making a soup for Alice and me from ham bones gifted to me by the butcher, and vegetables from our own garden.

"Good evening brother, and good evening to you, Isabella," Alice said, hanging her bonnet on the back of the door. "Isabella, I need to look at your eyes and hands, will you come to the light?"

They both stood at the window and Alice gazed into Isabella's eyes for an age, nodding and saying,"Ah..." and then she examined Isabella's hands, turning them over and tracing the lines there.

"Ah, indeed..." she murmured to herself. "I know what I have to do, but it will not be tonight as there are herbs I need to gather, and preparations to make. And I must explain the procedure to both of you, and Edward, please know there will be a very heavy price to pay. If you are to agree to this treatment, you must understand it fully."

It was time to take my pretty maid to the stable, and I took with me a tankard of pig's blood I had gathered that afternoon from the pig I had butchered. I placed it within her reach, and promised I would return after I had spoken with Alice. Her soft eyes watched me go, a tear in them, and she whispered, "I am sorry for the trouble I am causing you. I am sorry for the danger that you are in. And I am sorry for what your sister is about to tell you. I know what it is, and I do not consent."

I sat in front of the fireplace with Alice, and she took my hands and fixed a very serious expression upon me.

"There is an old Magick, Edward, that can help Isabella to a degree. She cannot ever be fully human, but her appetite can be moderated, so that she no longer desires human blood and she can live on that from animals. I have a recipe to make the draught that will perform this transformation. The recipe requires a mingling of blood both from the Vampyre, and from a human who has given it willingly, and Edward, now you must listen very closely, because this is important and grave. Whomsoever it is whose blood becomes part of the potion must also drink the potion with the Vampyre, and they will both be changed irrevocably. They will each become a little more like the other. If you want to take part in this undertaking, Edward, you will lose your humanity forever. During the day you will be the man you are now, but at night you will become a hunter, and you will need to feed on warm blood from freshly killed animals. The same will apply to Isabella, but she will no longer prey upon humans. Think carefully, Edward. You and she will be bound for all eternity, and Vampyres can never have children."

I stared into the flames before me, shocked by Alice's revelation. I wanted to help the innocent Isabella, but was I prepared to damn myself to do it? Her face appeared in my imagination - her heartbreaking tears when I had first come upon her in the forest, the softness of her smile when she tended to Misses Stanley and Webber in the village, the angelic calm when she was finally overtaken by sleep after the first surprising outburst of the dark side of her. And I saw the face of that other aspect, lips glistening with a mixture of saliva and blood as she licked at them with her wicked little tongue, eyes beckoning me and daring me and reaching to me...

Alice left me with my thoughts, and Isabella's voice came, for the third night in a row.

"Edward, please, I need you." She had drunk the pig's blood and had thrown the earthenware tankard and smashed it. She looked replete and sated, and her gaze on me was lazy and smiling.

"I won't hurt you now, you know it, don't you? I have had my fill of drinking, and now I want something else. Come to me and be my lover, here on your own coverlet. Take me," she was murmuring and whispering, and I swallowed, mesmerized.

"Do you know what Alice has said we must do?" I asked her, my mouth dry.

"Yes, I do, and we must do it at night because silly day time Isabella wouldn't let it happen. Imagine Edward, we could be together always. Come and touch me, let me show you how it will be," her voice purred.

"Would you be as you are now during the day, and still be as you are at night?" I said.

"Oh, _yes_, my beautiful doctor. You will get your virgin while the sun shines, and your harlot while it doesn't. What will _you_ be like at night, when you're not scared of me any more?" One of her hands moved to her waist, and she began to draw slow circles across her abdomen with her palm, and the circle widened to include the merest brush of her fingers across the globe of her breast, its swell pushing out the front of her nightgown.

"What will you be like?" she murmured again, holding the other hand out to me.

I shook my head. "No, I will not come any closer, I don't trust you, even if you have already drunk tonight. Which of you is the real Isabella?"

"Both, my darling, both. Come here," she said, straining against her bonds, her pale hands stretched towards me, her dark eyes sensuous and longing.

"I will remain here until you sleep," I told her, well back. There was no possibility that even her fingernails could reach me, because if they did I would falter and fall, I knew it, and I was still fairly sure that all her words and looks of enticement were intended to induce me close enough that she could bite me, tear at my skin and pierce it until the blood ran free and spurted into her hungry mouth.

I was tired to the bone the next morning, having endured another night of entreaties and exhortations, another night of her provocations as she touched herself and whimpered, and begged for my kisses. I took her upstairs again when she slept and watched her, despite my fatigue, wondering what I would do. If I was prepared to have Alice open a vein of mine, and to drink a vile concoction no doubt dark and bitter, I could save Isabella from herself, put an end to her torment, and save the lives of countless future victims. However I would ultimately lose my sister and the life I had known, as I would have to seek a new home if my bizarre and unsavory practices became known - I would have to continually seek new homes and seek new populations of animals to plunder. Medicine had been my life - what would become of me if I had to live on the outskirts of society with my strange and terrible bride? I thought deep into the morning, turning my options over in my mind. The pretty and bewitching Isabella would be at my side, always. Perhaps I could remain a doctor if I had a peripatetic existence. We could stay five years or so in one place before it was noticed that we didn't get any older. We would have to shun any invitations to dine and never issue any, so that others could never know that we didn't eat. I could engage in study, to keep up with advances in medicine as they occurred. The thought of never having children was painful, as it was something I had assumed would happen in time, and I had looked forward to it, so that gave me pause. I was rubbing my eyes and wringing my hands through my hair as I struggled with the decision, and I must have given way to sleep, because the sun was past noon when I next opened my eyes.

Isabella stood at the door to my bedroom, holding a tray with tea, and toasted bread.

"Edward, you have slept half the day. I'm sorry, I know it's my fault for keeping you up at nights, but don't worry - I went to the village today and spoke to Miss Stanley and found who your regular visits are made to, and I went and saw your patients. I have kept a written of record of whom I saw, and about what, and I have this here for your perusal. Young Master Newton is fully recovered from his attack of the croup, thanks to the medicine you left with his mother, and Jacob Black's ingrown toenail is no longer paining him, since you lanced the infection and trimmed the nail."

"You did all this?" I asked her, amazed.

She shrugged. "I wish I could do more. You have helped me greatly. You make me safe at night, you brought me sustenance so that I was no longer starving, you have given me a place to rest and you have shown a depth of kindness that I have never before received. You do not judge me, you seek to make comfortable the passage I traverse between my states, and you have treated me with respect. You do not even seem to consider me a monster. For all this I am extremely grateful."

I stretched then, my legs out in front of me and my arms wide and my chin thrown back to ease the discomfort of having slept cramped in my chair again. When my head returned to level I saw that she was still regarding me.

"Dr Cullen, I know what dear Alice will have told you, and I know what I said to you last night. I implore you this morning, please do not even consider this act. You cannot contemplate bringing such repugnance upon yourself as to become what I am. I have told you so little of my life and my circumstances and I would prefer to leave it at that, and I will be gone this very day, so that I cannot visit such a misfortune upon you," she said.

I frowned. "But Isabella, your appetitie will be diluted, you will no longer be dangerous, and you and I will be wild enough to worry a few deer, but nothing more. It seems to me a perfect solution for you."

"But what about _you_, Dr Cullen? Bound to me for life? With my changing ways, the creature I become at sundown, the inability to form relationships because I must always move?"

"Miss Swan," I began slowly. "We should have a relationship with each other, and I find you a delightful companion. As to the creature you become at sundown, I believe I would cope. And our relationship would be a marriage, which I have always thought would bind me to my bride for life."

Miss Swan sank to the floor beside me, taking my two hands in her own. "You cannot know what you are agreeing to, Dr Cullen, and I will not let you do it."

Her wrists were marked, showing that in the night she struggled against her bindings in order to get to me. "The creature you are at night has beseeched me to agree. She tells me that she wants me. Do you share any of those feelings?" I asked her quietly.

A blush showed immediately upon her wan cheeks, enlivening her appearance and she bit her lip, turning her face away, but not before I had seen a glint of fire in her eye, and then I knew that both Isabellas were indeed one, despite the difference in behavior and speech.

"Isabella, I am now determined. I want to marry you this very day, so that we shall enter into this arrangement as man and wife. We can see the reverend in the village and ask him to hear our vows. And tonight Alice will join us in unholy matrimony. I will honor and respect you, and look after you for all your days, I promise. You need never run again, and you will never be alone."

She turned her face to me now, tear-streaked and lovely, and I saw hope in her eyes.

"Do you mean it?" she whispered.

"Yes, Isabella, I mean it," I assured her.

Later that day Alice was boiling an evil-smelling brew in a cauldron over the kitchen fire, murmuring to herself about coltsfoot and wolfsbane. Isabella and I approached her hand in hand, and told her of our intention to wed.

"Please come with us to share this event, and act as our witness - and would you perhaps have something Isabella could wear?" I asked her.

She smiled and hugged us both, sweeping Isabella away upstairs for a good half hour, while I paced below, wondering what could be taking so long, and wary of looking into the bubbling murk in the cauldron in case I should see rat's tails or frog's eyes.

When they returned downstairs I could barely believe my eyes. Alice had conjured up a gown from somewhere of such splendor and simplicity that my lovely Isabella looked like a princess. She was radiant in white, and at my gasp gave me a smile that was both virginal and knowing.

The reverend was very surprised to see us, but we three had no trouble convincing him of the sincerity of our intentions, and the ceremony was conducted quickly and with no fuss. I returned to my home a scant hour after I had left it, a bachelor on my departure and a husband on my return.

Alice took us both outside into the yard behind the house with us still in our finery, a knife in her right hand and a half-full goblet of the mixture she had made in her left.

"Dr and Mrs Cullen, are you ready, and are you sure?" she asked us.

We each nodded solemnly, holding out our palms to her. Swiftly the knife flashed across the mounds at the bases of our thumbs, and she held our hands in turn over the goblet as our blood rushed forth. The mixture inside hissed and frothed, and I held Isabella's eyes with mine as I took a deep swallow, then she in turn followed me. We turned to Alice.

"What now?" I asked her.

"Your new life begins," she said smiling. "You must leave this place by morning, as the transformation will be remarkable, and you will attract negative attention if you are seen as your new selves tomorrow. But is there a mouthful of the elixir left? I will take it for myself, it won't be enough to change me too much, but if you pass by this way in a hundred years or so, I will still be here."

Night was beginning to fall, and my bride tugged on my hand.

"Goodbye Alice, and thank you for everything. I am bound to you now, you know, as you have tasted my blood. We will be back to see you, and we won't wait a hundred years," Mrs Cullen said. She began to walk backward, towards the stable, drawing me with her.

"You can't spend your wedding night in a _stable_!" Alice cried from behind us.

"Oh, yes we can," purred my wanton wife. "Oh, yes we can. Dr Cullen, I am in need of your attention!"

**.**

**.**


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